A dye-sensitized solar cell is developed by Gratzel, et al., (Swiss), has advantages of high photoelectric conversion efficiency and low manufacturing cost, and attracts attention as a new type solar cell.
The dye-sensitized solar cell has a structure in which a working electrode on which a porous oxide semiconductor layer having a photo-sensitized dye supported thereon and an counter electrode that is provided so as to face the working electrode are provided on a transparent base having a transparent semiconductor film provided thereon, in which an electrolyte containing redox pairs is filled between the working electrode and the counter electrode and surrounded by a sealing member.
In this type of dye-sensitized solar cell, when the photo-sensitized dye absorbs incident light, such as sun light or the like, electrons are generated and injected into oxide semiconductor fine particles, and electromotive force is generated between the working electrode and the counter electrode. In this way, the dye-sensitized solar cell serves as a photoelectric conversion element that converts light energy into power.
Patent Document 1 discloses a dye-sensitized solar cell module in which a plurality of the dye-sensitized solar cells is provided and the dye-sensitized solar cells are electrically connected to each other.